Hunter’s Dance (7 page)

X

She is of a melancholy, Madonna type.

A screech of wood on wood was followed by the crash of splintering glass. Mia paused, breath arrested, paring knife suspended. A stream of Nick's favorite frustration-relieving words sounded through the screen door, and she exhaled. He was conscious, anyway. She stepped onto the porch. “You okay, Nick?”

Her husband stood at the base of the ladder, his right hand pinned to his side by his left elbow. He delivered a kick to the shattered storm window. “Ya, ya, I'm okay. I just lost my grip on the damn thing, that's all.” He grimaced. “I got a hell of a sliver off it.”

“Let me see.” Mia took his tentatively offered hand. An inch-long splinter of wood protruded from the base of the thumb. She held the hand in both hers to stop its shaking. “You're freezing. No wonder you dropped it. Come on inside and I'll get a tweezers. Supper'll be ready soon. I can get Ross to do the storms.”

Nick snatched the hand away. “I can change the damn windows! I dropped it, that's all.” He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his plaid mackinaw and spun around to head across the yard. “I'm going to town to get some more glass.”

The hardware store would be closed long before Nick got there, but Mia didn't try to stop him. Nick would manage to find something to occupy his time once he got to town.

She picked the window up from the grass and placed it with the others leaning against the gray asphalt siding. They should be painted before they were put up anyway. Maybe she could do it tomorrow.

The sound of Nick's Dodge puttering off to Chandler had barely faded when another rumbling took its place. A black Ford rolled into the yard with Boy Deputy Cecil Newman at the wheel. What now? Nick had hardly been gone long enough to get himself into trouble. Newman exited the car and yanked off his hat as he walked toward her.

“Hello, Cecil,” Mia said. “If you're looking for Nick, he just left.”

“Ya, I saw him on the road.” His gossamer hair clung to his head like a monk's tonsure where the hat had rested. “It's you I've come to see.”

She moved close enough to be looking down at him. “Me? But it's my husband that's the criminal.”

His eyes glazed over in confusion for a few seconds before he emitted a forced chuckle.

“Come inside, Mr. Newman. It's too cold to stand out here.”

Cecil stood awkwardly by the kitchen door until she pointed him to a chair. She didn't sit herself, but stood over him while she picked up the knife and resumed peeling the potatoes. He coughed, twisted his hat, and coughed again.

She relented and dropped into a chair. No need to work off her exasperation with Nick by intimidating this child. Cecil Newman wasn't enough of a challenge to make it satisfactory anyway.

“You know there was a murder after the dance here on Saturday night?”

Oh lord, how could they be bringing her into that? Unless they thought Ross had something to do with it. “I know a boy died. I didn't know it was for sure murder. But I don't think there's anything I can help you with.”

“Mrs. Lindstrom—”

“She found the body. How awful for her.”

“Ya, sure it was. But she was at the dance, too, working in the kitchen.”

Mia nodded. “She generally is.”

“She says that for awhile you were outdoors, behind the hall, that you'd gone out for some fresh air.”

“Inge doesn't approve of anyone deserting her post, but I didn't think she'd report me for it.”

This time Cecil actually laughed. “She says you went out right after the fight. It would work out to be about the same time the victim, Bambi Morlen, left. We're wondering if you saw anything.”

So that was it. “I did see him leave,” Mia admitted. “I saw him come around from the front of the hall and go to his car.”

“Was he alone?”

“A couple of kids were by his car, waiting for him, it looked like.”

“Did you know them?”

“I couldn't really see very well,” Mia said. “They were in the dark on the other side of the car.”

“Boys?”

“It sounded like a boy and a girl.”

Cecil's questions were short and direct. He must have been listening to
Dragnet.
“Could you hear anything they said?”

Mia picked up a potato and resumed her dinner preparations. “No,” she said. “I just heard them laughing.”

“Okay, then what happened?”

“They got in the car.” She concentrated on removing the potato's skin in a neat spiral. “That took a while, it was a kind of miniature car. But they managed to fit in at last, and they drove away.”

“Think hard,” Newman said. “Did you see anybody else in back of the hall?”

“Well sure, there were a lot of people at that dance. A few of them were hanging around by the cars. Kids mostly, I'd say. I didn't pay much attention.”

“Did you notice Bambi talk to any of them? Even just say hi?”

“No. I didn't see him with anybody except the kids he left with.” Then Mia remembered. She put down the knife once again. “He did talk to somebody though. Before he came around the corner of the hall, before I could see him, he said hello to some woman—sort of.”

“Sort of?”

“Well, he said it in a kind of sarcastic way. Said ‘Good evening, Ma'am' and then he laughed.”

“Who was the woman?”

“I don't know. Whoever it was kind of huffed like she was startled. But she didn't say anything back or come around the corner to where I could see her.”

Cecil screwed up his mouth and rubbed his baby-smooth chin. “But,” he asked, “if you didn't see either of them while they were talking, how do you know that it was Bambi you heard? Couldn't it have been somebody else? Maybe Bambi coming around the corner at that time was a coincidence. Did you know his voice?”

Mia shook her head. “No, I'd never seen or heard him before.” So how did she know? “He said something like, ‘Good evening, arriving a little late,
Ma'am?'
and then laughed. He was still laughing when he came out where I got a look at him.”

“You think the person he was talking to must have been a grown-up woman? Could Bambi have called a girl, ma'am? As a joke, maybe?”

“I guess he might have,” Mia said. “I don't know. I never met the kid.”

“Never?”

“Of course not. Why?”

The deputy leaned back in his chair and looked into her eyes. “When I asked if you saw him leave, you said yes. You didn't ask for a description or anything. How do you know the young man you saw leaving was Bambi Morlen?”

Cecil Newman might not be quite so naive as he looked. What could she say?
I knew it was the boy who died because the side of his head was covered with blood from the wounds he was going to get later that night?

She stood and picked up the paring knife. “I don't know,” she said. “I'm just guessing.”

XI

Many were in great want, but life was often made easier by a light and glad temper and an inborn hardiness and capability.

The ax came down with a crack, and Grace Maki dropped the pullet onto the wood chip-strewn ground. A yellow tiger cat leapt gleefully upon its severed head. McIntire averted his eyes until the fowl's mad flopping ceased and Grace had reached out with a long hook to snag one of its unsuspecting mates by the leg. She held the second doomed bird by the feet and pointed McIntire to a low-roofed henhouse.

Inside, her son industriously forked manure into a rusty wheel-barrow. His energetic digging stirred up a fine, acrid dust. He wore a faded plaid muffler covering his mouth and nose below swollen, red-rimmed eyes. His friendly “Hi. Pa's out in town,” demonstrated that he had temporarily forgotten that aside from being a neighbor and Pa's partner in the occasional game of whist, John McIntire was St. Adele's version of a law officer.

McIntire's “I wanted to ask you a few things about Bambi Morlen” obviously reminded him. His hand shook as he stabbed his fork into the earthen floor and stepped outside. Ross Maki was not very tall, but his thin frame gave him an awkward gangliness. With his bristly hair and oversized clothing he had always put McIntire in mind of a cheerful scarecrow. Today he more closely resembled Sad Sack of the Sunday comics.

He pulled the scarf down around his neck. “I don't know who killed Bambi. If I did I'd of told somebody.”

“Were you at the dance on Saturday?”

“Sure.”

“So you saw the fight?”

Ross nodded.

“Did you see what started it?”

Here the young man hesitated and the pink of his eyes spread to his cheeks. “I think Marve might of been bothering one of the girls.”

“And Bambi decided to put him in his place?”

“No. I mean, it was Marve started the fight. He went nuts, lit into Bambi like a wild man.”

“Without provocation?”

“What?”

“Had Bambi done anything to get Marvin mad?”

“He might have said something to him, that's all.”

“Something about bothering Karen Sorenson?”

“Yeah.” He blew his nose on the rough wool of the scarf. “Marve's got a nasty temper. He carries a knife. Someday he's gonna hurt somebody.”

“When did you last see Bambi?”

The flush grew to encompass the boy's forehead and throat. So was there more to his previous blushing than his gentlemanly sensitivities over Karen Sorenson's plight?

“He left right after the fight.”

It didn't answer McIntire's question, but he followed it up, “And he didn't come back?”

“Well,” Ross responded, “he must of got back sometime if he ended up in the woodshed.”

“Did you see him return?”

“No.”

If McIntire was getting more out of Ross than the state police could, he was going to quit paying his taxes. Maybe he needed to go at it differently. “Did you notice anybody going into the shed during the dance?” he asked. “Did any of the kids spend time there?”

“Are you out of your mind? It was cold, and there ain't any lights in the woodshed. Why'd anybody want to go there?”

Ross Maki was either not particularly imaginative or an Oscar-level actor.

“Did you and Bambi drive to the dance together?”

“No. I took Ma over early to set up. I helped out some, but I had to come home to do the chores. I didn't get back there until about nine-thirty.”

McIntire went back to his unanswered question. “What about later? Did you see or talk to Bambi anywhere after he left the dance ?”

After more coughing, spitting, nose blowing, and a further change of complexion, paler this time, Ross lifted up his chin and looked McIntire in the eye. “Well, I saw him…ya.”

“Where?”

“I went with him. When you kicked…when he left the dance. He dropped me off home.”

“Did he take you straight home?”

“Ya.”

“So you got home about what time?”

“Early, maybe eleven-thirty or so.”

“Did Bambi say he was heading back to Carlson's camp after he dropped you?”

Ross' shrug and sudden interest in his cracked work shoes opened McIntire's mind to new possibilities.

“Was anybody else with you?”

McIntire had to lean down to catch the boy's response. “Karen Sorenson.”

More new possibilities. “Was Karen Bambi's girlfriend?” McIntire asked. “Were they going together?”

“No! She wanted a ride home, that's all.”

“Who did Bambi drop off first?”

“Me.”

McIntire fell to studying his own shoes. He hadn't talked to Karen that night. He'd been unready to embarrass both the child and himself by questioning her about Marvin Wall's attentions. If he'd been the snoopy busybody that he was elected to be, could he have prevented this death? He didn't want to think about it.

“Can you think of any reason somebody'd want to kill Bambi Morlen, somebody besides Marve Wall?”

Ross looked toward the darkening sky as if for inspiration, then back down at his shoes. “Well,” he said, “other Indians…Adam Wall maybe…they wouldn't like the way he beat up Marvin, and maybe they'd have other reasons….”

“What other reasons?”

“How would I know? I just said
maybe
they'd have other reasons.” He blew into his hands and rubbed them together. “Bambi had a lot of money.”

That was something McIntire hadn't considered. There'd been a few dollars in Bambi's wallet. “You mean he was carrying money with him? Are you saying he might have been robbed?”

“Nah, I just mean he was rich. Rich people are always getting killed for their money.”

Unless Bambi Morlen had a scheming wife or a bunch of greedy nephews hidden away somewhere, that didn't have a hell of a lot of relevance. McIntire gave the boy a light clap on the shoulder. “The sheriff will be wanting to talk to you, so try to see what more you can remember.”

As he turned back toward the house he saw the curtain on the kitchen window drop. Seconds later Grace Maki emerged out the back door.

“Stopping for coffee? I just made fresh.”

McIntire would have accepted gratefully even if he hadn't been as anxious to talk with Grace as she obviously was with him. His outdoor interview with Ross had left him chilled to the core as well as mystified. He could see that Ross might believe his friend had been killed by Marvin Wall, but why these other Indians with their other reasons?

His shoes, already caked with mud from his walk to Carlson's camp, now had an aromatic overlay of chicken manure, but Grace waved away his move to leave them on the kitchen steps. “Oh, don't bother with that. I haven't mopped yet today.”

Or this month, McIntire guessed. Grace Maki did not participate in the competitive housekeeping that occupied so many of her neighbors. She led McIntire through the porch crowded with shelves of tools and bric-a-brac to the kitchen table, swept aside nails, soda crackers, and magazines, and poured him a cup of what he would have assumed to be tea if she hadn't told him different. But it was hot, and he held the cup near his face to absorb the warmth of the steam.

Four paralyzed chicken feet protruded from a bucket on the floor. A blue enamel canning kettle filled with water simmered on the stove.

“Isn't it a terrible thing about that boy? Do you have any idea who did it?”

McIntire shook his head. “I was hoping your son might remember something helpful.”

“Ross is pretty down in the mouth. Bambi and him were like brothers, you know.”

“I heard they spent a lot of time together—looking for uranium, right?”

Grace gave a throaty chuckle. “Pie in the sky, I know. But it's supposed to be out there, and I guess Ross has as good a chance at finding a big heap of it as anybody. Better, maybe, with the professor to show him what's what.”

McIntire hadn't heard of anyone finding so much as a teaspoon of uranium, let alone a heap of it, but he couldn't blame Ross for looking or Grace for hoping. What did families like these live on? Sell a little cream for pin money and eat what they could raise, McIntire supposed. But you couldn't raise chickens or pigs without feeding them, and that took money. Mike Maki hadn't been able to do much since he'd taken that dive off the roof in July. And he hadn't pulled a paycheck since being laid off from his wartime job at Ford's glider plant.

“Had they come across anything promising?” he asked.

“To tell the truth I thought they might of. Ross started acting pretty excited about a month ago, not saying anything for sure, but dropping a few hints, you know. With Bambi gone, though, I guess that's that. Ross needs to find something. He'd like to stay here and keep on farming, but there's no future in it.” Tiny spatters of blood made an intricate trail across the once-white daisies of her apron. “I feel it was an act of God that he wasn't with Bambi, and didn't end up dead, too.”

“So Ross came home from the dance early?”

“Well, we didn't get out of there until about one-thirty, maybe closer to two. Ross was already in bed by then.” She gave an indulgent motherly shake of the head. “I tripped over his shoes when I came in the door. The sauna was hot so he'd been home for awhile. He said he came home early because he wasn't feeling so good. He did look kind of
kipia
all day yesterday. I didn't ask any questions, but I wasn't born yesterday. Well, maybe he learned a lesson.”

McIntire had never seen Ross looking anything but
kipia.
The lid on the canning kettle began to bounce. Grace slid it to the rear of the stove, grasped one of the birds and dunked it into the scalding water. Then she lifted it out, slapped it on the table, and began stripping it of its feathers. The aroma of wet chicken feathers is nothing, McIntire knew, to compare with the sickly odor unleashed by the evisceration process. It was getting darker, and after determining that her husband's recovery was progressing satisfactorily, McIntire left Mrs. Maki to prepare her dinner in solitude.